Good Food is First Food. It is not junk food. It is the food that connects nature and nutrition with livelihoods. This food is good for our health; it comes from the rich biodiversity of our regions; it provides employment to people. Most importantly, cooking and eating give us pleasure. …
EVEN AS Calcutta's transport authorities plan to phase out the tram, it is making a comeback in other parts of the world as technology's solution for a low-cost, non-polluting urban transport system. British firm JPM Parry and Associates has developed a modern tramway system, which does not require overhead wires …
FOR MORE than two decades, physicians have believed peptic ulcers to be caused by an excess of acids in the stomach, for which they have been prescribing antacids -- substances that treat acidity -- as a cure. But now it has been found that a bacterium called Helicobacter pylori is …
TIBETAN emigres accuse China of seeking to build a nuclear reactor near Lhasa, the Tibetan capital; of dumping nuclear waste on the Tibetan plateau, and of setting up sites there for missiles aimed at India. The US-based International Campaign for Tibet adds forced prison labour is being used to build …
GEOLOGISTS have found traces of a river that flowed between 5,000 and 11,000 years ago in the desert expanse of the Arabian peninsula. Some stretches of the river may have been as wide as 5 km wide, says Farouk El-Baz, director of Boston University's remote sensing centre (New Scientist, April …
IMPORT of waste scrap material -- some of which could be toxic -- for recycling, has created a controversy in Indonesia. Scavengers in Jakarta are complaining that the price of recycled items has fallen so low, their livelihood is threatened. Their demand for an immediate ban is supported by the …
International Business Machines Corp is all set to produce a line of personal computers that will be quieter and whose display monitors emit lesser radiation. IBM PC Co, a New York-based unit created by the US firm, said its computers, also meant for business users, are being designed to meet …
JAGARAN is a non-government organisation working on reviving the dying art of herbal healing in an impoverished tribal belt in Udaipur district. But its efforts have provoked a backlash among local allopaths and Karu Ram, a guni as herbalists are called, explains why: "Because we provide effective and free treatment …
AS WOMEN in Rajasthan insist on being treated by only another woman, Jagaran is making an effort to recruit women as gunis. One much sought after woman herbalist is 42-year-old Laxmi Bai of Gamana Sagar village in Udaipur district. She is the mother of six, and the wife of a …
BURDENED by repayment of its enormous external debt, the Peruvian government has been forced to cut down its budgeting for health and sanitation facilities, even though a cholera epidemic claimed about 4,000 lives there in 1991 and diarrhoeal diseases kill about 17,000 children each year in the country. The deteriorating …
ALBERT Bruce Sabin, developer of oral polio vaccine, has died of heart failure in Washington. He was 86. A prominent figure since the 1930s in research on virus and viral disease, Sabin developed a sweet, cherryred vaccine after 20 years of research. It came into wide use in the first …
Argues that excessive fluorides in groundwater are a serious water quality problem in some parts of Sri Lanka. The incidence of dental fluorosis shows a high correlation with the presence of groundwater in certain areas. Tube wells constructed in various rock types have shown different fluoride concentrations, possibly due to …
NEPALESE industrialists flatly deny their factories are polluting and at a recent seminar in Pokhara on the role of environmentalists in protecting the environment, they placed the blame squarely on the government in Kathmandu. They also ladled out some of the blame on public sector industries, motor vehicles and bureaucrats …
JONATHAN Mann, who resigned as head of the World Health Organisation's AIDS programme during Hiroshi Nakajima's first term as WHO director general, is now challenging Nakajima's re-election. Mann resigned after criticising Nakajima for his "personalised style of management" and for downgrading the organisation's AIDS programme. Nakajima's re-election campaign was fierce …
AS THE United Nations labours to clear the mess it has been accused of creating in providing refugee relief in Somalia and in the elections and peace process in Angola, World Health Organisation director-general Hiroshi Nakajima is attempting to pre-empt complaints of still another delay. He called on the international …
THREE years ago, the state government directed the Uttar Pradesh Ground Water Board (UPGWB) to carry out a detailed survey of the fluorosis-affected villages in Unnao district. But it has yet to release the Rs 7 lakh that such a survey would cost. Despite this, the UP government recently directed …
A JAPANESE company will soon begin manufacturing toilets incorporating biosensors that can detect diabetes. This will enable doctors in their clinics to monitor diabetes, especially in patients over 65, by analysing a patient's urine through a computer and modem (New Scientist Vol 136, No 1853). The toilet was developed by …
AIDS has reached crisis point in Thailand, prompting the government to increase its HIV-prevention budget by L5 million. An NGO study predicts that by 2000, 2.4 million Thais -- out of 53 million -- will be carrying the deadly virus. Apart from the prohibitively-expensive medical care -- each afflicted person …
An Act to provide for the regulation of production, supply and distribution of infant milk substitutes, feeding bottles and infant foods with a view to the protection and promotion of breastfeeding and ensuring the proper use of infant foods and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.
A YEAR ago, there was excitement and anticipation in Shaheed Nagar when it was announced that a weekly Hindi newspaper would be launched in the colony. Shaheed Nagar in Uttar Pradesh was once an illegal slum close to Delhi. Today, it is a regularised colony of 60,000 and has virtually …
CARE INTERNATIONAL president Malcolm Fraser, who made a recent fact-finding visit to Somalia, has appealed for the UN peacekeeping force there to be increased to 15,000 and for deployment of about 500 observers in the country. He warned that unless UN aid workers receive adequate protection from marauding, local gunmen, …
